SALEM — Oregon’s unemployment rate has risen for five consecutive months, climbing a full percentage point to 4.5%. Nearly 100,000 Oregonians were looking for work last month.

While that’s still a relatively low number by historical standards, the consistent upward trajectory of the unemployed suggests a labor market that’s steadily cooling off.

Other signals suggest a more complicated picture, though. Oregon is continuing to add jobs at a relatively rapid clip (nearly 80,000 new jobs last year). And the state still had as many job openings as unemployed people last fall.

So what’s going on?

“One thing to note is why unemployed Oregonians are jobless,” says Gail Krumenauer, economist with the Oregon Employment Department.

The state classifies the unemployed in three broad categories — those who lost their jobs, those who quit their jobs, and those who have newly joined, or rejoined, the workforce.

Since March 2022, the biggest category of people looking for work has been these “new entrants.” They accounted for 42% of Oregonians classified as unemployed in December. (Though they are unemployed, they usually don’t qualify for unemployment benefits because they didn’t lose a job.)

Another category, “job leavers,” accounted for 20% of the unemployed in December. These are people who quit their job without another one lined up. (They usually don’t qualify for jobless benefits, either.)

These quitters are looking for new jobs but haven’t found one yet. Historically, they represent just 12% of the workforce. But their ranks were elevated throughout 2022 and are currently at a 30-year high, according to Krumenauer.

Given the ongoing labor shortage, it’s not hard to figure why people might be more willing to quit their jobs even without knowing where their next paycheck is coming from. They can be relatively confident they will land something new.

That third category may be what most of us think of when we envision the unemployed – laid-off workers scrambling to patch their careers back together and shore up their finances. These are the people for whom the country created the unemployment insurance system.

Such laid-off or fired workers represented half of Oregon’s unemployed, on average, over the past 12 years.

But those workers were just 38% of the unemployed in December, near the lowest point since the 1970s.

Employers have been reluctant to lay off anyone over the past two years, given the severe worker shortage. Job cuts did rise modestly in the fall, but Oregon hasn’t had widespread layoffs since the early part of 2020.

That could be starting to change.

Intel, the state’s largest corporate employer, is cutting costs and cutting jobs – though it hasn’t said how many it will lay off in Oregon. Lam Research, one of Oregon’s largest manufacturers, is laying off 7% of its staff worldwide but hasn’t said how many will lose their jobs at its technology equipment factories in Tualatin and Sherwood. Railcar maker Gunderson is laying off 101 in Portland as it shifts manufacturing out of state.

Oregon’s jobless rate was a full percentage point higher than the national rate, 3.5%, in December. But overall, Krumenauer said the state’s employment remains solid by historical standards.

“We are seeing a little bit of an unemployment increase due to layoffs,” Krumenauer said, “but most of the unemployment picture is for these other reasons that aren’t necessarily a reflection of a deteriorating labor market.”